


The Snake and the Strawberry

by cheshirejin



Category: Fruits Basket /  Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2657855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirejin/pseuds/cheshirejin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for intoabar 2014</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Snake and the Strawberry

  **Title: The Snake and the Strawberry**

**** Author: cheshirejin  
Prompt: Ayame Sohma goes into a bar and meets Ichigo Kurosaki  
Fandoms: Fruits Basket /  Bleach  
Word count: 2324  
Rating/Contents: T for dropping the F bomb, no warnings needed. 

 

“A snake, a dog, and a seahor-er, dragon, scuse me ‘Tori, walked into the bar one day.  Now there’s a fitting beginning to this story. It is as if my life is some sort of cosmic joke after all. Only in this one the snake arrived to find the other two have skipped out on the party before the punch line,” Ayame Sohma rambled dejectedly into the half empty cup in front of him, the most recent in a fairly long line of cups just like it. 

“I don’t do well on my own, the graceful, princely, hot-house flower that I am. I need to be in the bosom of my family and the warm glow of friends to thrive, too bad about the people I want to be with the very most. Yuki hates me. My own brother, but I can hardly blame him. Dear Hatori is just too busy, _doctors_ , and Shigure,  well he was walking in the door and saw his editor approaching from the other direction, then he vanished like a fart in the wind, _poof,_ leaving me here alone, again.

“Then there is Mine, she is my beautiful angel of mercy, too bad I don’t dare get close to her, my life is truly and thoroughly cursed and she deserves so much better.  I have seen what happens when an outsider gets too involved and I can’t risk it with Mine so long as the family bears our dark secret.

“ Listen to me, getting all maudlin.” Ayame snorted, after a few brief moments of silent introspection. “That really isn’t fitting, for I am _the_ Ayame Sohma and mere mortals should bow down before my greatness. Don’t you think?” he muzzily scanned the area behind the bar, not having noticed that the bartender he had begun his “conversation” (soliloquy) with, had since ended his shift and been replaced by someone else.

Ichigo Kurosaki wiped down the far end of the bar. He didn’t love his job, but working nights and weekends at the bar was helping pay his way through medical school.  He noticed one patron, who had been sitting at the bar when he started his shift twenty minutes ago, had finally stopped droning on about whatever he was on about and was looking around. 

The first impression Ichigo had was that this person had unusual long silvery white hair that reminded him of Captain Uketaki’s, but he seemed to be much younger. He was also pretty plowed.  Goro had said as much when he handed the bar keys over to Ichigo while he got ready to start his shift.  Apparently, he had been stood up by someone, or something, or a petting zoo… and was two hours or two drinks away from being cut off and sent home in a cab.

Ayame looked for the barkeep, he was fairly certain he could drink one, maybe two more,before the alcohol would weaken him enough to activate the zodiac curse, and he was in the mood to push things. 

A shock of orange hair registered in his slightly booze addled brain. _Kyo? What was he doing here?_ he wondered as he hollered out for the bartender’s attention, “Hey, Kyo!”He waved his hand to call him over.  “Aren’t you a little young to be tending a bar, little kitty?” he asked as the young man approached. When the bartender turned to face him though, the face that was revealed wasn’t the familiar scowl that he expected, but a different scowling continence. 

“Okay, buddy, I think you have had enough, here, “ Ichigo informed the customer. He walked over to him and setting a glass of water on the bar, he cleared the last of the glasses from in front of the drunken man.

_ It’s not Kyo _ … Slowly the reality registered in his brain. 

“Oh, I am sorry,” Ayame said, after a moment of collecting himself. “I mistook you for someone else, your hair and eyes are remarkably close to his, but upon looking closer, I can tell you are nothing at all like Kyonkichi. Unless of course you also have a dark family secret and are harboring a monster inside of you…” the last part was mumbled under his breath. “Here, let me buy you a drink to make up for the mistake.”

“It’s not a problem,” Ichigo said, rolling his eyes. “Besides, I can’t drink when I am working, it would get me fired.”

“Oh, right… Well then, take my card and if you ever need anything just get in touch and I will do my utmost to make it up to you then.”

“All right, thanks,” he said, half watching for other customers, as he slipped the card into his pocket. 

“May I ask your name?” Ayame said. He was sure that he would refer to him as not-Kyo in his head until he had a real name to match his face. 

“Ichigo Kurosaki,” he answered.

“Pleased to meet you, Ichigo-san; I am Ayame Sohma, the one and only owner of Ayame the store. Feel free to bask in the glow of my presence and be honored to meet me,” Ayame said, sitting up straight and doing his best to look regal, despite feeling a bit wobbly at the moment.

_ Fuck off _ \- is what Ichigo really wanted to say, but couldn’t and still keep his job. Though the look on his face must have said it all.

“Oh that look, that is exactly what Kyo would have done too, it is like you’re his doppelganger or something.  I swear it would be like some sort of paradox if you two met. Very bad indeed.” Ayame frowned. “Somehow I want to see that happen though, wait here, don’t move while I call him.” 

The man called his friend and blinked, his eyes widening, before looking at the phone reproachfully and cutting the connection.

“What language!” Ayame gasped, shaking his head. He turned his attention back to Ichigo, “Well, it seems that Kyo will not be coming…” The dulcet strains of the chorus to ‘Who let the dogs out’ interrupted him and he quickly answered his phone. It was Shigure inviting him over to his place for dinner to make up for ditching him earlier.

Ayame smiled and stood, “Well then, I guess I will just be running along, taa taa!” he called out.

“Wait, are you sure you don’t need a cab?” Ichigo hollered after him. 

“Oh no, I am perfectly fine,” Ayame said, and at the moment Ichigo would have been hard pressed to have guessed he had drank half of what he had that afternoon. “I can hold my liquor; it is part of what makes me so amazing,” he concluded, fixing Ichigo with an almost hypnotic gaze that made the hairs on the back of his neck raise a bit. 

“Don’t worry I won’t be driving, my cousin is picking me up at the corner,” he said, before walking straight into the door and staggering back, almost landing on his backside. The glass door had been cold to the touch, the weather outside had gotten chilly, and he was feeling the alcohol in his system more than he expected. The room did a half spin and he felt the edges of an oncoming transformation.  Ayame made a mad rush to the men’s room, making it just as he felt the world lurch and his body shift from human to the form of the zodiac snake.  Surrounded by a puff of smoke and his own clothes Ayame laid on the men’s room floor and groaned.

Ichigo had rushed out from behind the bar to help him when Ayame had staggered back from the door, and now he was silently praying he wouldn’t have to mop a metric ton of vomit in the bathroom tonight. 

Ayame slithered out from inside his clothes and curled up on top of them, past experience had taught him that staying within the warmth of his clothing led to some uncomfortable ways of wearing it when he transformed back. 

Ichigo knocked on the door, “Are you ok in there?” he asked.

“I will be,” Ayame answered. “You don’t want to come in here, honest,” he added, hoping that would be enough to keep people out of the toilet for a while.

_ Great _ , Ichigo thought to himself, knowing he was in for some sort of hell to clean up in there, and to top it off he was sensing an increase in spirit energy which usually meant trouble.  Groaning a bit, he asked one of the cocktail waitresses to watch the bar for him, before getting the mop and bucket from the store room, and filling it with a strong disinfecting solution. Wheeling the bucket back to the men’s room, he knocked on the door lightly, before pushing his way in. When he stopped just inside the door, two things struck him at once, first off there was a pile of clothing in the middle of the floor, which had implications leading to a naked, drunk man hiding somewhere out of sight in one of the stalls, and two, and probably more troubling for him, there was a weird feeling like a sudden rise in spirit energy in the room.  Focusing back on the clothes, a small silver-grey snake lay coiled up on top of them, motionless at first until it realized he was looking at it, then it reared up and said, “I told you not to come in for a while. Would you be a dear and please lock the door behind you? I can’t reach the latch as I am right now.”

Ichigo nodded and absently latched the door behind him. He thought he probably should have been more weirded out by this situation, but after training with Yourichi, it just wasn’t that much out of the realm of what he was familiar with. 

“So, are you a human or a shinigami?” It was tactless, but also the first thing he could think of to ask.

“Shinigami? Aren’t those just old myths?” Ayame asked back, before continuing, ”But yes, I am human, just cursed. If my body is weakened or I get too cold or other annoying criteria are met I transform into this form.”

“So you don’t change on purpose, and didn’t choose that form?”

“Why would I choose this form of all the possibilities? No, I am the snake of the Chinese zodiac, a dozen or so members of my family are cursed this way. “

“So, this Kyo you were talking about, is he one?” Ichigo asked, gaining interest in this curse.

“Yes,” Ayame nodded.

“Let me guess, he is the boar, because of his short temper.”

“No, actually he is the cat.”

“But there is no cat in the Chinese zodiac,” Ichigo said, puzzled.

“That’s why poor Kyonkichi is so pissy all the time,” Ayame explained. “He isn’t a part of the zodiac, but he carries the second worst burden amongst us.”

“Second worst?”

“The head of the family always caries the full brunt of it for us, they rarely live to see old age,” Ayame said sadly. 

“Oh,” was all Ichigo could think to say.

“Do me a favor, on my phone, hit the first contact in the list and lay the phone down here so I can talk.”

Ichigo did as instructed and Ayame soon had another relative of his coming to pick him up.

Before his ride could get there, there was a puff of smoke and Ayame was suddenly sitting there, very naked, and the bathroom seemed a lot smaller. Ichigo looked away while Ayame quickly put his clothes back on and reached past him, unlocking the door. 

“I will wait in here in case I transform again, but ‘Tori should be here soon to get me. It’s been nice to meet you today, Ichigo, I wish we could be friends, but he will probably have to erase your memories of today,” Ayame frowned for a few and then brightened, “But then I can look forward to meeting you for the first time again later and it will be okay, as long as you don’t know about the curse anymore. It won’t hurt; you won’t know it happened, actually.” 

“Whoa, wait; hold up a minute, what is this?” Ichigo demanded.

“Well our family has always kept the curse a secret, and there has always been at least one member of the zodiac, who could manipulate people’s memories to keep it that way. There is a chance that it will be decided that you have to lose your memories of me, but you won’t miss them so it isn’t a big deal, really.”

“And if I don’t want my memory erased?”

“That is sweet of you, but really this whole curse just brings gloom and doom to all, I would suggest getting away from it if you can.”

“What if I don’t want someone messing with my head like that?”

“Oh, well then I suggest we not tell Hatori that you saw my zodiac form. No one has to know, right? Oh, and you should get back to work,” Ayame said with a wink, turning to mess with his hair in the mirror.

Ichigo shook his head as he wheeled the mop bucket back into storage and took his place behind the bar. He was reflecting on how he was a magnet for some of the strangest people, but things were never boring. When Ayame’s ride finally showed up, he dragged him down from the karaoke stage.

Ayame obediently followed Hatori out to his car as soon as he saw him, not wanting to take more of the busy doctor’s time than necessary. 

“Hey, Aya, didn’t that bartender look a bit like Kyo?” Hatori asked as they pulled into traffic.

“Him? Like Kyo? No, I don’t see it at all, he looks more like a big strawberry to me,” Ayame replied with a smirk.


End file.
